What theatre. What drama. Oh to have been in the stands at Galle, or perched on the flag-fluttering ramparts of the fort, as Murali, shoulder twingeing, twirled down over after fruitless over, 23 of them, in search of that final wicket.

When Hirst and Rhodes famously "got 'em in singles", a spectator is said to have gnawed his way through the handle of his umbrella such was the tension. No brolly would have been safe yesterday. And what a roar must have echoed off the fort walls as Mahela Jayawardene plunged to pilfer the catch that sealed the innings and, as if it ever needed further defining, Muttiah Muralitharan's place in the pantheon. An 800th Test wicket, the final one of his final innings, with his last ball on the final day of a peerless career.

Metaphorically, the roar echoed round the world too, as we followed the progress ball by ball on Cricinfo, waiting to be told "WICKET!" and then "MURALI". If this was Murali's day then we should not forget the catcher, for this was the dream ending by the most deadly combination of fielder and bowler the game has seen, the 77th catch that Mahela had taken off the bowling of Murali, the most by any non‑wicketkeeper from a single bowler, a record that will almost certainly stand the test of time. Only Rahul Dravid, who took 55 catches from Anil Kumble's bowling, and Mark Taylor, who pouched 51 from Shane Warne, have reached 50.

I still have memories of sitting at The Oval in 1964 as Fred Trueman went into lunch on a hat-trick, and with 299 Test wickets. And the moment of sheer relief when finally, as Ted Dexter was about to withdraw him from the attack, Neil Hawke edged to Colin Cowdrey at slip and a dishevelled, wrung-out Fred draped himself round the shoulders of the catcher.

Will anyone else ever get to 300, he was asked. "They'll be bloody knackered if they do," he replied. If only he had known then that he had hardly seen the shine off. Murali had scarcely warmed up when he got to 300. Since then, the milestones have been ticked off relentlessly: Lance Gibbs, a solitary spinner amongst the pace pack, Dennis Lillee, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev (who took so long to crawl over the line that one Indian observer said that he had not broken the record, merely exceeded it).

As I write, I have in front of me a keyring in the shape of a miniature cricket ball which commemorates Courtney Walsh's then Test record of 519 wickets. Then came the spinners once more, Shane Warne and Murali pushing ever onwards: 600, then 700. They passed the record between them as if playing pat-a-cake until one afternoon in Murali's home town of Kandy, with Warne retired from Tests, the Sri Lankan broke the record for the last time and afterwards wrote in my son's autograph book: "To Josh, 709 to beat!"

From then on he extended only his own record. They said he could get 1,000, but that was wishful thinking. By now his shoulder was screaming with the years of violent rotation and his knees were creaking. Age was catching up, and besides the snap had begun to go from his bowling. Batsmen began to get the hang of him. He bowled more overs for less reward.

The doosra, on the surface a potent weapon and fundamental to overcoming left‑handers, also became a hindrance because of the line adjustment he needed to make to his stock delivery so as not to telegraph it. Thus his off‑break became less threatening to right‑handers.

Records, so it goes, are there to be broken. Not this one, though. To Benjamin Franklin's assertion that death and taxes are the only certainties can now be added the eternal nature of Murali's 800. Unless it changes drastically, the nature of the modern game will see to that. Even then it would require an unlikely set of circumstances. First a spinner who starts early and has the fitness and stamina to send down the best part of 9,000 overs that it would take. Next the surfaces on which to flourish, as Murali had in Sri Lanka (it was no coincidence his final tilt came in Galle, where he has taken more than one in eight of his wickets). And finally a player able to dominate the bowling to the extent Murali did; he bowled a third of Sri Lanka's overs during his time.

The age of the great spinners seems to have gone, though, with the passing first of Warne, then Kumble and now Murali. Of current bowlers, the only credible ones to retain a hope of even getting to 500 would be the Turbanator, Harbhajan Singh, who has 355 wickets, the New Zealand captain, Daniel Vettori, on 325 and, as a long shot, the South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn, who strikes faster than anyone.

There simply is not the number of Test matches for the two spinners, however (Vettori has already played 100 matches), while the very high‑octane nature of Steyn's job, or that of any aspiring fast bowler, evokes "live fast, die young" more than any hint of longevity. Harbhajan, who is 30, would at his current strike rate and average number of overs per Test need to play around another 105 matches, which at his present seven a year would mean bowling until he is 45, which seems unlikely. By the same criteria, Vettori would be 51. Murali's record is safe.